


London Days

by DontAppallMeWhenImHigh



Category: As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 12:56:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontAppallMeWhenImHigh/pseuds/DontAppallMeWhenImHigh
Summary: What if Jacob confronted Ferris then left him....





	1. End Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacob knows.....

It is a small hut and he stands in my way. "Move or I make you!" The Voice speaks to him through me.

"Jacob! Jacob stop! I was wrong to accuse you of craft!"

I shake my head and tell him. "Why are you here. Caro awaits you...."

" Caro?"

"Jane then since that is the name she uses here!" I yell at him.

He stares at me. " You know her by another name?"

"My wife." I fling belongings carelessly.

_"Your wife?_ How can that be?" He grabs my arm his hand closing over the bloody imprint of the thorns.

I remember his fake sympathy of touch and shake him off since he loves her now. "Stop your pawing."

He stares at me from the dirt floor and gets back up.

"My wife. A practised liar with a pretty face. The child my own brother's... Zeb's." I smile at him savagely.

There is a sudden change in his face. " Her husband violated her ...That was you or Zeb?"

I turn to go. " Me. Drunken and all already lost on our wedding night....twas a butchery but had it not been it was still all falsehood and she'd played along.... Lies that she favoured me . Months of courtship thinking her pure and innocent. Dreams of our future thinking her as in love with me as I was with her. Fool that I was... was Zeb she wanted between her thighs."

"She lay with Zeb?"

" And fastened our wedding ring in his ear!" O but he feels it now , I hear the disgust in his voice. His perfect angel shown to be more cunning whore than Madonna. "She's laid down with you all the while knowing who I am ! "

He is white faced. "She's your wife , Daniel your son?"

" You are welcome to both.... call them a parting gift. She was more Zeb's than mine as is her son." I say and turning force my feet to walk . "Be warned Brother Christopher despite her pure looks she is no Joanna."

Caro is weeping on the ground when I see her and Wisdom on his foolish knees beside her. He opens his mouth to speak but one stare from me closes it again.

"Jacob where will you go? Have you money? " Hepizbah asks me.  
"Worry about yourself ," I tell her. "There will be murder done here if you are foolish and remain . You have no man left here now of strength."

I am past the staring faces of our ragged colony and halfway across the dusty field before I hear voices shouting _Christopher_ and he comes running.

"Jacob!'

I stop but do not turn for him.

"How long have you known?" he says.

"I heard you both in our secret place," I say. "You pleading to be touched." I am sickened by the memory.

"O _God!"_ He says and I know him rocked by the revelation. "Once only!"

"No matter.. twas the stuff of jest." I say harshly, though my heart dies with grief. "No need to play your double game now. You shall have my wife to live alongside. You can raise Zeb's bastard in your own house when all this is torn down."

I see him wince.

I am free to leave this hated place at last. My legs ache as my stride lengthens.

"Jacob!" His voice cracks on my name. "It's night where are you going?"

I stare away from him toward the dark road. "Anywhere that you are not."

_I sowed this crop I now walk among._  
_ I built that hut._

_I loved one man more than my own life._

"Jacob! !" Breathless. "Stop !"

This time I keep walking.

_"Jacob!"_ He runs to catch me up. "You can't.... Hear me , it's not as you think! .... What's round your neck?"

Blinded by tears I find the ribbon, break the last tie between us and throw it down.. "Love has made me a fool. I have toiled for you without recompense or friendship in hopes of your love ! No more! I have learnt my lesson by heart as you bid me ... You regret all that we were. You love another! Go to her. You are a perfect pair of liars. " 

When he tries again to stop me I punch him down but still he shouts after me as I walk away into the dark .

_"Jacob! Jacob! Jacob!"_

In London I find work with Harry.


	2. Striker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacob tries to start again in London but Ferris isn't far behind him....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight crossover with Sherlock here....

It is good to be back in London again, to sleep upon a bed....Heaven.  
I feel myself in princely luxury even if the linen is frayed and the room so small I could touch both walls with my arms outstretched.  


Elizabeth's cooking warms the belly. It is as good as a blessing not to have to face a bowl of Hepizbah's pottage and fear for my teeth on the odd stone.  
The sister Margaret is like enough to Elizabeth to be her twin yet lacks something of Elizabeth's easy manner and has spent her whole life knowing it as I had with Zeb.  
It makes me prone to show kindness toward her but l stay my distance, fearing another Becs and apply myself to learn my new trade in earnest.

I am apprenticed striker.  
Harry sets hot metal upon the anvil with tongs and taps it with a small hammer to show me where to strike then I swing the heavy hammer high and bring it down.  
In this way my strength bends and changes metal itself.  
It is hot and heavy work but my shoulders grow stronger at it and the red sparked violence of it pleases me.

I am slower to accept other changes.  
Ferris is Caro's now.  
The Devil fills my head with images of how it once was between us.   
I ache for him one hour and hate him the next.  
I question all. Doubt everything I once held sure.  
Did he always plan to cast me aside once the work was done and my strength no longer reason enough to include me in his New Jerusalem?  
Thus I torment myself, laying awake hour after hour in the lonely comfort of my new bed..

On South Bank I stand to watch a youth with ivory skin and heavy curls play the fiddle.  
He plays Barbry Ellen.  
I know the words but do not sing.  
I note the exact moment he sees me above the crowd as it happens.

I buy him ale and watch him sip at it like it was his first.  
You play well, I bend hot lips to his ear to praise his nimble fingers.  
Beneath his open shirt neck his chest shows pink flushed against the black.  
Tis crowded. I'd go someplace quieter. I say.  
I know a place, he answers. Breathless.

I show him little care that first time.  
Pushing him back hard into the wattle and daub of the wall his head knocks hard.  
I hear him sob.  
Guide his calloused fingers around my prick and catch at his own.  
Say my name, I grunt.  
I do not know it, he gasps.  
One hard pulse more and his spurting seed brings on my own.

Ferris has written to me.   
I know his writing.  
Stare too long at my name last written by his hand.  
Hear again his voice as he promised he belonged too me.  
But then..... I remember how he begged for Caro's touch.  
On the forge I burn his lying words to ash.

The second time I am no gentler.  
Open your mouth I bid him, then choke him with my manhood till he gags upon it.  
After he rests his face on my bare thigh and closes his eyes exhausted.  
I feel his panting breath dampen my skin.  
He looks raptured. As those who see a Saint are said to be.  
What are you called? I ask him.  
Shylock, he tells me..  
Jacob Cullen, I say.  
My Samson. He smiles and I close my eyes in pain.

In my absence Harry and Elizabeth have been graced by a visitor.  
That Ferris has been here angers me. I feel my jaw and neck set hard  
He asked about you, Elizabeth tells me.  
He misses your friendship, Harry says.  
I bite my own tongue until I taste blood.

I take goose grease with me the next night.

I've never. Shylock stares wide eyed at the tiny pot.  
Ferris had been practised.  
I am the first here.  
It gives me scant pause. I am too angry with Ferris for care.

Stripped bare Shylock shows white skinned and lean.  
Narrow waisted as Nathan was.  
I tug his head back by his hair and suck his throat.  
Too keep him willing I palm his prick, he pushes my hand away as though taking pleasure pains him but moans as I bite his neck.  
.  
His body gives to one greased finger then quickly two. I spend no time on it.  
I spread his legs out wide with my own.  
Slide one wide forearm round his neck to keep him for my use and hold him beneath me as I press his hole.  
As the broken sound rises I push him down into smothered silence and use him hard.  
The pleasure when it comes is fierce.

Full of my seed he lies sprawled as if broken.  
Jacob was it good? He speaks at last.  
I touch him tenderly for the first time.  
Cover him in blankets and praise him.  
He is mine now.

He craves pain.  
It is a gift to a dark angel such as me.  
Think how you can use him, the Voice tells me...  
That week for the first time I dream not of Ferris but of Shylock's pale skin reddening under my own hard hands while the Voice tells me new ways to make him sob out loud.

Ferris comes again a week later.  
I stand outside where I am not seen and listen to his voice say my name.  
When the child wanders out and sees me I hold a finger to my lips.  
He stares at me as though he knows all my secrets.  
I walk away and stay gone till dawn.

I leave Shylock with my bite upon his lip as Becs once did to me .  
His bloody kisses dry in secret upon my skin as I walk home through the stinking streets.

.


	3. Loyalte

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken a liberty date wise with The Buff Coat Has No Fellow....

Aunt is dead.  
I know how Ferris grieves.  
Becs tells me he is sodden with wine.

Poor woman. Elizabeth says.  
I can manage. Go talk with him, Harry says as he hammers out the horse shoe.  
I plunge the hot iron underwater and remember how Walsh struggled.  
I will call to the house, I lie.

I go instead to see Shylock.  
He looks at me with knowing eyes and plays The Buff Coat Has No Fellow.  
I see desire on the faces of some who stand and watch his intent beauty as he plays.

I grip him close all the way home. My hand hard on his neck.  
Call him sluttish, though he is not.  
He is a willing gift of skin and flesh to leave marked as I will.  
I cover him in welts.

I loved Ferris.  
Gave him my life to direct as his own.  
One drunken bitter night....and all he felt for me was taken back.  
Violent love eats up what it doth love and is but appetite, he told me once.  
I care not for the memory.  
He would not understand this violence of mine for the love it is.

It is simpler with Shylock.  
I am come to understand how the pain and praise he craves must be mixed.  
I strike his wide eyed face aside and after keep him close until he sleeps.  
He says my name dreaming.  
_Jacob._  
He trusts where others fear me.

Ferris calls again to the forge. The common has been cleared.  
He was grievously beaten, Elizabeth tells me.  
My heart aches to hear it.  
Let's leave this work, Christopher is in sore need of his friends. Harry decides for us both.  
I nod. Take my time washing the dirt of the forge from my arms and face.  
Quietly I pack my few belongings.  
I have grown to like my life here but since he will not stop coming I must go.

In the street as I walk away I hear Ferris call my name.  
He does not run after me. I hear him limp.  
_Jacob?_  
I will not turn.  
_Talk to me Jacob, do not play the tyrant_. He pleads.  
The words wound me.

How is my sluttish wife? I turn to ask.  
_It was but once_ he says.  
I laugh. Do you not tire of your lies? Twas twice you sent me for your letters so you could lay with her in our place.  
I see him flinch.  
_Jacob. What did I tell you? I belong to you_.  
There is wine on his breath.  
I have no new trust to give him.  
I remember how he showed me his prick when I asked for his love. As though that were proof.  
I am leaving England, for Massachusetts, I tell him.  
He begs. _You can't! Jacob, I love you._  
You miss your dancing bear. I tell him.

I go to Shylock and he lets me grieve anew in violence.  
At night he lights candles and I watch him pray for the first time. It sounds like a song  
There is black seeded bread plaited like a woman's hair.  
He places his candles and Holy food before me and watches me eat.

I find new work among his people, strong arming those who will not , or cannot, pay the debts they owe.  
I break noses and twist arms then go home and use pain more artfully.  
My strength is praised.  
The work sickens me beyond reason.  
I long to leave London's stink behind me.  
Where once I saw jewels now I see only gilded turds.

.

They say men speak the truth in dreams  
I am told I still speak his name in mine.  
_Ferris._  
I cannot forget how the sobbing sound he made when first I caught him round the waist.  
Or how he lay upon me, dripping kisses into my mouth.  
He is carved into me  
Sharper edged than any Basing House glass.

We set sail at dawn.  
Shylock holds my hand where none can see.  
I'll take him to the New World.  
Live with him.  
A new beginning since there cannot be an end.

I dare not look back at the city where Ferris is even now wakening to find me gone  
I fear if I do I will throw myself overboard and drown swimming back for him.


End file.
